


Dance of La Daae

by ConvenientAlias



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Pole Dancing, night club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 01:34:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvenientAlias/pseuds/ConvenientAlias
Summary: “You’ll be going directly after La Daae.”Carlotta's thoughts screeched to a halt. “What? That bitch?”La Daae was a new performer at the Club Populaire, well, relatively new—only arrived about a month and a half ago, and didn’t even perform regularly. And yet she was already a favorite. Probably because she was a specialist. Crowds loved a good pole dancer.





	Dance of La Daae

In an ideal world, Carlotta Giudicelli would have been a big star in the theatre world. She had a voice after all, and she knew how to dance, and she knew she had looks. When she was a teenager in high school she had planned on moving to the city and making it big in some musical or other. She had known a woman like her was meant for a stage.

She had succeeded in moving to the city and finding a stage. Not exactly the kind she had initially planned on, but all in all, this sort might be more lucrative.

Instead of spending her days searching for bit parts and auditions in the newspapers and online, Carlotta chose said auditions sparingly, only when it suited her mood. Truthfully, she hadn’t been in a legitimate show in a few years now, ever since she got fired as an extra when she said some rude things to a certain director. No, she made her money faster and surer now, as a performer at the _Club Populaire_.

The _Club Populaire_ was one of the nicer night clubs in town. It had the wealthiest patrons, and while performers were still paid largely in tips and appreciation, that meant the tips could be rather huge if you played your cards right. And Carlotta knew how to play them. In a weekend she could make a few thousand dollars when the right people came to the club. She had some regulars.

Tonight was a Friday so she showed up early at around seven. She always came in the back way—the bouncers knew to let her in. They didn’t like her, really. She never gave them as big a cut of her money as they would like, even when they tried to intimidate her about it. In fact, a lot of workers at the _Club Populaire_ didn’t like her. But the clientele did, and so they had to respect her anyhow.

In the back, she started working on her makeup. She had come with her foundation on, but she would add eye shadow, contouring, liner, lipstick, etc. now, and of course she would have to change her outfit…her hair was already nicely curled, and she could probably spray it with just a little more work.

When one of the club managers, Firmin, came in the back, she asked, “What am I on for tonight?”

“We’ll leave it up to your discretion.”

Hm. She had a couple tricks in her bag. A striptease was always a good one back when she was a bit younger, but these days she worried that she was gaining a little too much weight for that (she would have to up her exercise regimen again). There were table dances when she knew which patrons to focus on (you could only go to one table at once, after all), and of course other types of erotic dances depending on the crowd…

“You’ll be going directly after La Daae.”

Her thoughts screeched to a halt. “What? That bitch?”

La Daae was a new performer, well, relatively new—only arrived about a month and a half ago, and didn’t even perform regularly. And yet she was already a favorite. Probably because she was a specialist. Crowds loved a good pole dancer.

(It was one art Carlotta could not do, and she was a little bitter about the fact.)

La Daae—or Christine, as she had cordially invited her fellow workers to call her—didn’t even have to strip most of the time, rare for a pole dancer. She danced in a tight leotard, peach colored with black and red sequins artfully decorating the breasts, and a pair of long black boots with stiletto heels. And she never took any of it off. And her patrons somehow found this to be extremely erotic anyways.

(Carlotta somehow found this to be extremely erotic anyways, and she had been working the club for almost six years.)

La Daae. God damn. And she had to follow that act? It was less insulting than going right before La Daae, of course, since that would imply she was only preparing them for a better act to follow, but the crowd would be expecting quite a show. She would probably have to do one of the most perfectly, painfully drawn out stripteases of her life if she didn’t want to come across as just a little dessert after the main course, and if she wanted to keep her reputation around here she couldn’t, simply couldn’t, allow herself to be shown up.

She growled. “Is there a reason you decided on this positioning?”

“You’ll be the climactic performances of the evening,” Firmin said with a nervous smile. The toad would manage things to her detriment behind her back but face to face he was terrified of her. “And everyone will know you’re coming up. Gives you plenty of time to talk to the men beforehand, a little bit afterwards…”

God damn.

“Well, what time?”

“Ten o’clock. La Daae is going at nine forty-five.”

Fifteen minutes of her stretched out on a pole would get the men ready to come in their pants just sitting there. Carlotta sighed. Maybe they would all be so drunk they wouldn’t care if Carlotta or Christine gave the better performance. But Carlotta would care. How could she not? The way everyone talked about Christine like she was the new star (and she knew, didn’t she, that people talked about Carlotta as if she was a falling comet).

“I’ll be ready.” She began to mentally arrange her choreography.

* * *

 

Carlotta didn’t always go out to watch the act before her. Usually it was a nineteen-year-old, inexperienced stripper or someone equally talentless, and it was a better idea for Carlotta to do a couple final stretches and make the crowd wait to see her (even though she’d usually already been schmoozing a bit through the evening). She went to watch La Daae, though. She always did, even when the program did not arrange it so conveniently. You had to keep an eye on your rivals.

And, although she would never admit this to anyone else, it was always a pleasure to see someone who genuinely understood erotic dance as an art.

The crowd was filled with raucous hoots and hisses of reverent appreciation even as the act began. Probably started by those who recognized her and continued by their drunk friends who would cheer for anything at this point. They were fools, mostly, the men who came to this club. They couldn’t see the difference between a good dance and a bad one. This time, though, their appreciation was on the money. Carlotta could barely restrain herself from calling out as well even as La Daae went through her first couple twists, gaining some height on the pole so she would have room to do her tricks. Soon she was about ten feet above the ground, and she barely seemed to notice. Watching an artist like her, you didn’t worry about the height, about the possibility of a fall, even though it added an element of danger. No, your heart quickened its pace for another reason.

Carlotta wet her lips.

La Daae painstakingly lowered her torso, stilettos locked over her head, only clinging to the pole with her thighs. Smirking out at the mob of drunks who called themselves gentleman, she pretended to toss a red apple into the crowd–the centerpiece of her performance–but kept a hold of it every time. At last she tossed it, rather than into the crowd, off to the side of the stage, straight to Carlotta.

Carlotta caught it. Having now drawn some attention, she smiled graciously at the crowd and took a bite of it, making sure to sink her teeth in slowly and seductively. As a couple men began to shout at her instead of La Daae, who continued her act, she held back a scowl–it threw her off her game to be thrust into the spotlight before her act, and she was certain La Daae was sabotaging her. Ever since she first started working at the club, she hadn’t stopped winking at Carlotta, and pulling tricks like this in the middle of performances.

Power moves, really. No one else would have dared. Most of the other girls tended to stay out of Carlotta’s way, either out of dislike or an odd sense of worship. But La Daae wasn’t frightened of Carlotta, nor would she be ruled by her.

Indeed, as she made her way to the very top of the pole, she looked as if she wasn’t ruled by anything, even gravity. Weightless she floated there, twisting and turning, sometimes seeming about to fall but always in complete control of her body. Then slowly, slowly lowered herself a couple feet and continued to dance, coming closer to the ground little by little as her act wound its way to a close.

Finally she settled and went to the ground, standing on her hands for a minute before deigning to flip to her feet. Her face was flushed and she was grinning, but she showed no sign of strain as she bowed to the audience and gathered up the dollar bills that littered the stage—she had no chance to grab them earlier, centered on the pole as she was, but there were plenty of them.

Carlotta waited. She waited for the men to settle, even for them to grow bored of talking about the act, until they called out for her, asking when she would go on. Then she slowly stalked up the stairs and took her position onstage with a bored look on her face but a cocky tilt to her hips.

She would make them beg for her to even smile. La Daae gave an effortless performance and there was something to that, the consummate artistry to it, but Carlotta knew how to get men invested. She would dance agonizingly slow and make them shout and wail and throw money before she even took off the shrug she had draped lightly over her shoulders, or plucked the gloves off her hands, or let her hair down out of the loose knot she had put it in. That way, they would feel like they earned every inch of skin she showed, every part of herself she allowed them to see, as if they had a real relationship with her. They would also, if she played it right, give her an obscene amount of cash.

Tonight, she played it right. She had a couple regulars in the crowd who had seen her naked enough times to be addicted but not enough to be bored. And after Christine’s erotic abstraction everyone was ready for something hot and heavy. Carlotta could give them that. Carlotta could torture them with that.

Relationship was an art as much as whatever it was Christine aspired to do. Carlotta built it.

When she was done, she undoubtedly had more cash than Christine, and the men were talking more loudly. They said she was the best performer they’d seen all night. Of course they did. Once you’d invested money in something you weren’t going to say it wasn’t worth the value. And they’d given her thousands.

Smiling in satisfaction, she dismounted the stage. Hands reached out to touch her as she hooked her bra back on, but she knew how to rebuff that kind of attention. Sometimes a look, sometimes a slap, sometimes just slipping out of reach. A couple touched her. A couple she brushed against on purpose. Nothing she didn’t intend.

(Later that night she would feel oddly dirty anyhow, as she often did after watching La Daae or after a long performance like this one. But she had the money. Who gave a fuck?)

As she reached the edge of the room, she saw a flash of peach. La Daae was making her way over.

Oh God.

She forced herself not to hurry off and talk to one of her regulars. Instead, she smiled cattily. “Hello, dear. Lovely performance.”

“I liked yours too.” La Daae was still flushed. Maybe she’d been drinking—drinks were cheaper for employees, and any number of men would have bought them for La Daae. It wasn’t wise to drink on the job but nearly everyone did anyway. “It was very bold. Everyone likes you.”

“That’s the job. Being liked. It’s nice that you can use a pole, though. Not everyone can do that.” They’d had this conversation before too many times. Why did La Daae always want to make small talk, and when they were still in the house and surrounded by men? Carlotta cleared her throat. “I have to see to my clients.” Give a couple lap dances probably, collect a little more cash.

“Sorry, of course.”

“Later then, Daae.”

“Christine. You can call me Christine.”

Was she really going to say her name that loudly where everyone could hear it? Carlotta nodded.

Christine beamed. It was a smile that looked much to sincere for a place like this. Didn’t correspond with the way she acted on the pole, either. So she could balance multiple personas, innocent and seductive. Carlotta shook her head as she watched her walk off.

They did run into each other later, though Carlotta had not expected it. In the back, she found Christine still there when she came back to clean her face and change into something more covering. A surprise since usually Christine left soon after her act. She didn’t stick around to offer private dances or lap dances, but took the take from her dance and headed out. An odd one. Carlotta really didn’t understand sometimes why the men liked her.

And sometimes she really, really did.

Because Christine was changing too. Only a bra and underwear, leotard folded up on the counter. She was taking a pair of jeans out of what looked like a ballet bag but for now she was showing her stomach and more of her chest than usual. A little tanned, but not very. Smooth, very smooth. And muscled.

Carlotta swallowed. Damn it. She saw naked girls every weekend, enough to give her ennui. Christine still had a bra on. This was nothing.

Silently she put on her own dress and started to remove her flashy makeup with cold cream, not looking at Christine. Then, a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up.

“Andre and Firmin were asking if we might consider doing a dance together,” Christine said. She bit her lip. “I don’t know if they’ve asked you…”

“They haven’t.” Because they knew she would bite their heads off, probably.

“Well? What do you think? I know I don’t know the ropes as well as you…”

As if she didn’t still have the skills to carry a routine. But, Carlotta said to herself, it was beneath Carlotta’s dignity to perform with a girl like this one.

Then again, who was she kidding? It was Christine who was on a different level. Carlotta’s schtick anyone could do with enough practice. Christine’s was something unique. And growing in popularity.

And men always liked to see two women together, especially when they weren’t wearing many clothes, and they could imagine the two might be intimate off the stage as well. It could be…interesting.

Firmin and Andre would gloat but that could not be helped.

“I’ll consider it,” Carlotta said. “Give me your number.”

She handed Christine her phone and Christine typed it in.

“Good. I’ll text you. It could be interesting.”

Christine gave a nervous grin, curtsied (curtsied? Dear Lord) and fled, taking her bag with her.

Carlotta sighed. Performing with Christine would be even worse than performing after her for her reputation as queen of the club. But then, a queen could take a consort. And sometimes ego had to take backseat to pleasure for a little while. If Carlotta had gotten used to performing at a night club, she could get used to performing with a partner.

Perhaps it might be fun.

**Author's Note:**

> A solid two months ago at least I was prompted to write a three sentence fic for an AU with Christine as a pole dancer and the Carlotta/Christine ship. The AU kind of stayed in my mind so I've edited the three sentence fic into a...somewhat longer fic.  
> I like pole dancers and strippers. Carlotta, a very sexualized sort of performer in POTO (at least in Leroux) would probably be in her element as one of them. Christine a bit less so, but a good performer can always make her way in the world. Sort of. Don't take this as a recommendation to go work in a club, because I don't actually know what goes over well at them! I am very ill informed but I tried my best.  
> If you have thoughts or feelings on the fic or on the ship, comment or talk to me at convenientalias on tumblr!


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